New study out of Harvard -- TYPE of calories matters more

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  • CoachReddy
    CoachReddy Posts: 3,949 Member
    my diary has never been locked. lol
  • sunsnstatheart
    sunsnstatheart Posts: 2,544 Member
    my diary has never been locked. lol

    Like you claimed not be selling Shakeology on here "coach"?
  • Confuzzled4ever
    Confuzzled4ever Posts: 2,860 Member

    The study tried to answer why so few of us are able to lose weight, and keep it off. The answer? It's not enough to simply count calories. It matters what kinds of food those calories come from.

    Thank you for taking the time to post this.

    This has always been the case regardless of what others say on here.

    Now, maybe those who insist in eating burgers, ice cream, cakes and all kinds of rubbish they shove down their throat will realise that when they say "I'm under my calories" , doesn't mean you have achieved your goal for the day of eating correctly.

    Eat healthy to stay healthy. Eat crap to look and feel like it.

    Why do people get mad at the ones who choose to eat crap? It's not your life... it doesn't affect you if a stranger 5 states away decides to eat regular spaghetti instead of steel cut oats... I'm not saying you're not right. Eating healthier foods results in healthier people! Great! And, according to this, better results with weight loss. But damn it, if I choose to be unhealthy, just let me be unhealthy! Calm down about my bad choices! Stop acting all exasperated that you were right all along and everyone else is completely stupid for not giving up sugar and hamburgers. Those of us who still eat simple carbs have no one to blame for the end result but ourselves. And trust me, I blame me and nothing else. Not calorie counting, not health nuts, not marketing, not my friends...... just me. My sins are ever present and plentiful... I am just trying to cope with it the best way I can make it work for me. I'm working out... I'm eating less..... they're only baby steps in the right-ish direction, sure... but they're still steps. And I'm okay with celebrating that.

    OH -- and PS -- do you know that it is in FACT that person's goal to "eat correctly"? Perhaps their goal is just what they said it was..... to eat under their calorie allowance for the day. You don't get to make other people's goals for them. That's personal to each individual.

    I think you need wine and chocolate.. and a rather large chill pill..


    and people speak up *because* people who make unhealthy choices are those who are most likely to come on a site like this whining about thier diet not working.. and then when you tell them why.. you get the above type of answer.

    You don't want to hear that your food choicse are really not all that healthy? Then don't come on here complaining that you feel like crap. Easy :~)

    I don't whine about my diet not working.
    I know that my food choices are not really all that healthy.
    I don't come on here complaining that I feel like crap.
    I don't need wine and chocolate, but thank you for suggesting that I cope with stress through alcohol, food, and medication. Great ideas.

    lol guilty much?

    sorry i didn't qualify that *you* was plural, not specific to you personally. just as I assume your rant was to the general public not a specific person??

    Oh and yes.. and there is nothing wrong with a glass of wine and some chocolate after a stressful day.. A glass of red wine is actually reccommended by doctors (or is it two? i'll go with 2 tyvm) and so is dark chocolate.
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    This thread is looking rather more like a food fight, too bad really as the study was interesting.
  • PikaKnight
    PikaKnight Posts: 34,971 Member
    *sigh* are you guys really arguing that the typical american diet (but just eating less of it) is as good for you, and gets you just as many nutrients, as a fruit/veggie/whole grain heavy diet?

    this is the argument? just trying to clarify for myself.

    I'm actually arguing against making vague claims with no scientific backing, but that it's ok because you tacked 'fact' onto the end of it.

    The typical american diet is problematic because that average daily intake of the typical american exceeds their TDEE, hence the obesity epidemic in this country.

    You claimed a person who lost weight a specific way would be healthier than someone who lost weight in a different way. I said prove it.

    You're changing the subject because you can't.

    Thank you for pointing that out. :flowerforyou:
  • Shadowknight137
    Shadowknight137 Posts: 1,243 Member
    Meh, this seems like nothing new. I don't exactly believe the type of calorie matters in regards to body composition. In terms of health? Sure. But we all need our treats now and then.

    Take chocolate for example. If chocolate was somehow bad, and took years off my life, would I still eat it? Abso-freaking-lutely. Why? Because life really isn't worth living up to the age of eighty or ninety without eating chocolate. Lord forbid, ow boring that would be.
    my diary has never been locked. lol

    Actually, on that note - not to nitpick or anything - didn't you say you were gluten intolerant/ate gluten free?

    Y the whole wheat bagel? :O
  • SoViLicious
    SoViLicious Posts: 2,633 Member
    I never did like Harvard :frown:
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    Take chocolate for example. If chocolate was somehow bad, and took years off my life, would I still eat it? Abso-freaking-lately. Why? Because life really isn't worth living up to the age of eighty or ninety without eating chocolate. Lord forbid, ow boring that would be.

    Chocolate contains catechins, same as green tea. So yes, it can be good for you in moderation, just like red wine. Sugar, not chocolate, is the real problem for chocolate. Just like alcohol is the problem in red wine... some people have to mind that bit, and there are ways about it.
  • sunsnstatheart
    sunsnstatheart Posts: 2,544 Member
    This thread is looking rather more like a food fight, too bad really as the study was interesting.

    It's certainly worth a read, but one study in isolation means little. These studies are often put forth on here to prove some specific point or another to back up a larger agenda or axe to grind by a few who post constantly demonizing this food or that. If you go through the profiles of the people supporting the consumption of fast food as part of a well balanced diet you will see quite a few very athletic MFP members. I think that should give anyone pause. It certainly did for me once I got serious about things and stopped making assumptions.
  • CoachReddy
    CoachReddy Posts: 3,949 Member
    *sigh* are you guys really arguing that the typical american diet (but just eating less of it) is as good for you, and gets you just as many nutrients, as a fruit/veggie/whole grain heavy diet?

    this is the argument? just trying to clarify for myself.

    I'm actually arguing against making vague claims with no scientific backing, but that it's ok because you tacked 'fact' onto the end of it.

    The typical american diet is problematic because that average daily intake of the typical american exceeds their TDEE, hence the obesity epidemic in this country.

    You claimed a person who lost weight a specific way would be healthier than someone who lost weight in a different way. I said prove it.

    You're changing the subject because you can't.

    ok i actually wasn't trying to change the subject, but in thinking about this, I think I've figured out how we're missing each other.

    i guess the issue that we keep coming up against is whether someone's PRIMARY GOAL is one of two options:

    1) Lose Weight - as in, I don't care about anything else and all that matters to me is that I'm skinnier. With this option, you can eat however you want and accomplish your goal, as long as you're eating less than your TDEE. When this is your goal, a calorie = a calorie.

    2) Become Healthier - as in, I just want to be a healthier, happier person who's more resistant to illness, injury, fatigue, etc, and if/when I lose weight, that will be a bonus. With this goal, your food choices do become more limited, but since they fit in with your goal, you don't feel like you're restricting anything. You're eating whole foods because you WANT to, and thus the weight falls off as a bi-product of being a healthier person.

    My philosophy is option 2. Personally I think that's the better option. However, we're all allowed to make whatever choice is right and best for us, and if someone else picks #1 who am I to say that's wrong? The difference comes in when people choose #1 and think they'll be just as healthy as #2 and deride those who choose it, and try to persuade them to "see the light" and stop being "special snowflakes".

    That's what always gets me up in arms.

    But back to your point - losing weight one way vs. another. Losing weight on a typical american diet will still leave you with fewer nutrients - at the end of the day - than someone losing weight with a whole food diet. processed foods simply lack the nourishment of whole foods. One calorie of white, enriched rice does not have the same nutrient profile as one calorie of wild rice. Thus when you add it all up, one side will be lower than the other - even with the same number of calories.
  • WendyTerry420
    WendyTerry420 Posts: 13,274 Member
    43% of caloric intake as sucrose (table sugar) in this study, wonder what happened?

    Metabolic and behavioral effects of a high-sucrose diet during weight loss. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997 Apr;65(4):908-15.

    www.ajcn.org/content/65/4/908.full.pdf

    Someone needs to forward this study to Matt_Wild

    :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    Meh, this seems like nothing new. I don't exactly believe the type of calorie matters in regards to body composition. In terms of health? Sure. But we all need our treats now and then.

    Study wasn't really talking about body composition, though. It was measuring things like leptin and cortisol.

    http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1199154
    In conclusion, our study demonstrates that commonly consumed diets can affect metabolism and components of the metabolic syndrome in markedly different ways during weight-loss maintenance, independent of energy content. The low-fat diet produced changes in energy expenditure and serum leptin42- 44 that would predict weight regain. In addition, this conventionally recommended diet had unfavorable effects on most of the metabolic syndrome components studied herein. In contrast, the very low-carbohydrate diet had the most beneficial effects on energy expenditure and several metabolic syndrome components, but this restrictive regimen may increase cortisol excretion and CRP. The low–glycemic index diet appears to have qualitatively similar, although smaller, metabolic benefits to the very low-carbohydrate diet, possibly without the deleterious effects on physiological stress and chronic inflammation. These findings suggest that a strategy to reduce glycemic load rather than dietary fat may be advantageous for weight-loss maintenance and cardiovascular disease prevention. Ultimately, successful weight-loss maintenance will require behavioral and environmental interventions to facilitate long-term dietary adherence. But such interventions will be most effective if they promote a dietary pattern that ameliorates the adverse biological changes accompanying weight loss.

    (also, the study is from mid 2012, so not really new, but thanks for alerting me to it!)
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    I never did like Harvard :frown:

    Crazy talk. Harvard is my go to source. Look to the Willett, I say!
  • CoachReddy
    CoachReddy Posts: 3,949 Member
    Meh, this seems like nothing new. I don't exactly believe the type of calorie matters in regards to body composition. In terms of health? Sure. But we all need our treats now and then.

    Take chocolate for example. If chocolate was somehow bad, and took years off my life, would I still eat it? Abso-freaking-lutely. Why? Because life really isn't worth living up to the age of eighty or ninety without eating chocolate. Lord forbid, ow boring that would be.
    my diary has never been locked. lol

    Actually, on that note - not to nitpick or anything - didn't you say you were gluten intolerant/ate gluten free?

    Y the whole wheat bagel? :O

    no, i just ate a gluten free pizza, and that's how that all came up. i don't think gluten's particularly good for us, but i haven't gotten to the point where it's eliminated from my diet.
  • haroon_awan
    haroon_awan Posts: 1,208 Member
    Thank goodness this was posted. Can we finally leave this topic to rest?
    Calorie deficit=weight loss; whole foods=better health!

    Amen.
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    This thread is looking rather more like a food fight, too bad really as the study was interesting.

    It's certainly worth a read, but one study in isolation means little. These studies are often put forth on here to prove some specific point or another to back up a larger agenda or axe to grind by a few who post constantly demonizing this food or that. If you go through the profiles of the people supporting the consumption of fast food as part of a well balanced diet you will see quite a few very athletic MFP members. I think that should give anyone pause. It certainly did for me once I got serious about things and stopped making assumptions.

    Whatever the agenda of the poster was, it does hit at things that was at the core of why I changed my diet in the first place in the way that I did. Inflammation and dealing with post-thrombotic syndrome, which was making life pretty miserable. I am a celiac so that part is involved too. I have to be gluten free, there is no halfway on that point.

    It has helped.
  • WendyTerry420
    WendyTerry420 Posts: 13,274 Member
    My only regret is reading a thread with the word "glycemic" in it more times than I need to see in a lifetime. Time for candy, then a nap.
  • CoachReddy
    CoachReddy Posts: 3,949 Member
    This thread is looking rather more like a food fight, too bad really as the study was interesting.

    It's certainly worth a read, but one study in isolation means little. These studies are often put forth on here to prove some specific point or another to back up a larger agenda or axe to grind by a few who post constantly demonizing this food or that. If you go through the profiles of the people supporting the consumption of fast food as part of a well balanced diet you will see quite a few very athletic MFP members. I think that should give anyone pause. It certainly did for me once I got serious about things and stopped making assumptions.

    and you will also find many more who aren't. what's your point? you've never heard of an athlete having a heart attack? it happens. Fitness =/= Health. That's why they're two different words.
  • Like they say, a bottle of red wine a day is good for you.
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
    I never did like Harvard :frown:

    Crazy talk. Harvard is my go to source. Look to the Willett, I say!

    Willett? lol
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    I never did like Harvard :frown:

    Crazy talk. Harvard is my go to source. Look to the Willett, I say!

    Willett? lol

    D*mn skippy, Willett!!
  • Acg67
    Acg67 Posts: 12,142 Member
    I never did like Harvard :frown:

    Crazy talk. Harvard is my go to source. Look to the Willett, I say!

    Willett? lol

    D*mn skippy, Willett!!

    I put his wisdom on par with Lustig and the like
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
    [quote[
    2) Become Healthier - as in, I just want to be a healthier, happier person who's more resistant to illness, injury, fatigue, etc, and if/when I lose weight, that will be a bonus. With this goal, your food choices do become more limited, but since they fit in with your goal, you don't feel like you're restricting anything. You're eating whole foods because you WANT to, and thus the weight falls off as a bi-product of being a healthier person.
    [/quote]

    But that's the issue that I think a lot of folks don't get when they adopt elimination diets.

    Assume you need nutrients A, B, and C nutrients to run optimally, but have to eat less than X calories in doing so to lose weight:

    1) Person A gets nutrients A, B, and C from entirely whole food sources, and eats fewer than X calories
    2) Person B gets nutrients A, B, and C but also eats a cupcake, and eats fewer than X calories.

    Person A isn't magically somehow healthier than person B.

    To get adequate nutrition on a calorie restricted diet, you need to eat food from nutrient dense sources. That often means whole foods and such. If, on that diet, you can still fit in treats or whatever, more power to you there's no problem with that.

    If two people lose weight and each gets adequate nutrition, it doesn't matter what they ate.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    This thread is looking rather more like a food fight, too bad really as the study was interesting.

    It's certainly worth a read, but one study in isolation means little. These studies are often put forth on here to prove some specific point or another to back up a larger agenda or axe to grind by a few who post constantly demonizing this food or that. If you go through the profiles of the people supporting the consumption of fast food as part of a well balanced diet you will see quite a few very athletic MFP members. I think that should give anyone pause. It certainly did for me once I got serious about things and stopped making assumptions.

    and you will also find many more who aren't. what's your point? you've never heard of an athlete having a heart attack? it happens. Fitness =/= Health. That's why they're two different words.

    Fitness is a huge health marker. Anyone can become ill, regardless of diet, age, genetics or fitness level. There are some things beyond our control. The only thing that = health, is health.
  • bcattoes
    bcattoes Posts: 17,299 Member
    I never did like Harvard :frown:

    Crazy talk. Harvard is my go to source. Look to the Willett, I say!

    Willett? lol

    D*mn skippy, Willett!!

    I put his wisdom on par with Lustig and the like

    I don't care.
  • drchimpanzee
    drchimpanzee Posts: 892 Member
    http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/10/160757730/low-and-slow-may-be-the-way-to-go-when-it-comes-to-dieting

    I think this NPR story might be about the same study. My favorite line from the story:
    But equally important, she says, is a "part of the equation often ignored": exercise. She points to research that shows people who were successful in maintaining their weight a year after losing it added a significant ingredient to their daily regimen: at least 60 to 90 minutes of moderate exercise every single day.
  • MaraDiaz
    MaraDiaz Posts: 4,604 Member
    Low carb makes me happy because low carb makes me less hungry. I do not care how much energy it does or doesn't take to burn protein and fat versus carbs versus processed carbs.

    Okay, I care in that it's kind of neat to try to understand these things and not nearly enough is known about human nutrition, but otherwise, meh. Don't care. Doing what works for me.

    The politics and economics of these things are infinitely fascinating, however. Let's say you have a workforce and you don't care about their health except when it impacts production. You just want them to live on the cheapest possible food sources and then you want them to die when they get too sick to work and certainly before they can collect any retirement. So you'd want a bunch of bread eaters, you'd want to eliminate healthcare, and you'd want to eliminate subsidies for things like beef (which is hugely subsidized; if it weren't the average American would never be able to afford it).

    But if you want a truly healthy workforce with longevity, you would make unhealthy food expensive and healthy food cheap. The opposite of what we have now, not due to any nefarious plot, mind you, but because human nutrition is poorly understood and policy makers are just too short sighted.
  • get ready for the "I eat crap and still lost 50 pound crowd"

    That would be me ... and still losing right on schedule.
  • sunsnstatheart
    sunsnstatheart Posts: 2,544 Member
    This thread is looking rather more like a food fight, too bad really as the study was interesting.

    It's certainly worth a read, but one study in isolation means little. These studies are often put forth on here to prove some specific point or another to back up a larger agenda or axe to grind by a few who post constantly demonizing this food or that. If you go through the profiles of the people supporting the consumption of fast food as part of a well balanced diet you will see quite a few very athletic MFP members. I think that should give anyone pause. It certainly did for me once I got serious about things and stopped making assumptions.

    and you will also find many more who aren't. what's your point? you've never heard of an athlete having a heart attack? it happens. Fitness =/= Health. That's why they're two different words.

    The question is whether it is possible to be fit and eat fast food, no one is arguing that eating fast food is essential. Further, a person who is not fit and who eats fast food is actually irrelevant to that question. You really should take some time to understand logic before engaging in this type of argumentation.
  • rm7161
    rm7161 Posts: 505
    I don't care.

    Same :)

    I don't care if there are athletic people who eat McDonalds. They probably don't have an autoimmune disease either, which I do.